Скачать или смотреть Never in doubt lads: 5 THINGS WE LEARNED VS SPURS

And breath!!! An emotionally draining north London derby has concluded and the gunners ran out 3-2 winners. It was one of the most confusing games of football I’ve ever watched. I thought we performed below our level in the first half yet somehow found ourselves 3 nil up at half time. We then conceded two goals in the second half where I thought we played better. The game began frantically with both teams turning over possession easily. Tottenham having more of the ball without much penetration of the arsenal defence. Arsenal had a havertz goal chopped off for offside but it wasn’t long before the gunners took the lead through an emile Hodjberg own goal from a saka corner. I feel that goal brought spurs to life because for the next 10 minutes they dominated the ball. They created a few chances, Romero hitting the post and a van der ven having a disallowed goal due to offside. Arsenal weathered the storm and hit Tottenham on a counter attack. A fantastic cross field pass from Havertz to Saka who still had a lot to do but he didn’t disappoint.

Bukayo scored his 15th goal of the season, after twisting Ben Davies in the spurs box and cooly slotted the ball in bottom corner. The arsenal wide man had an underwhelming couple of games earlier this month but he seems to be back to his best. He was very good against Chelsea last week but in this game he was even better. Dropping an 8.2 rating, touching the ball 61 times and maintaining an 88% pass success rate throughout the game. The most impressive stat though was the 11 ground duels he won. Bukayo has a small stature but he is so powerfull. He never seems to be bullied by defenders who may be bigger than him in size. He also managed to put in 5 tackles, showing his willingness to help out in defence. Saka made his league debut in in the 2018/19 season against Fulham on newyears day and he has never looked backed. He has kept improving season on season.

Another standout performer in the North London Derby was Kai Havertz. The german dropped a man of the match performance with an 8.3 rating which was the highest rating of any player on the pitch. He had 46 touches of the ball maintaining a 71% pass success rate. One of his best traits as a central striker is his the amount of duels he contests in aerially. In this game alone he contested 10 aerial duels and won 8 of them. That type of aerial dominance makes him intolerable for defenders and it also creates a lot of chances for our midfielders. He also contributed with a goal and an assist capping off an excellent centre forward performance. The german has had an amazing 2024, since the turn of the year he has scored 8 goals and assited 5 times.
Chief amongst those who have proved doubters wrong is the manager mikel Arteta. The Spaniard won his 100th league game since taking the reins at the helm for arsenal. He becomes the fifth fastest manager to reach this milestone with only Guardiola, Klopp, Morinho and Alex Ferguson ahead of him. He is slightly ahead of Arsene Wenger in this regard who took 10 more games than arteta to win a 100 games. This shows me that he may have not achieved as much as these managers yet but he is definitely on the right track. Since his first day at arsenal he knew how much of a task was ahead of him if he is to get arsenal challenging for titles again. It has taken a few years to build this team and on the way we have experienced a lot of pain from being embarrassed by our rivals to finishing 8th twice and even missing out on the title by 5 points last season. All this will be worth it if he leads us to the title in the next 18 months.

After the horrendous couple of weeks for Liverpool in the title race, it is now officially a two horse race to the title. On week 25 liverpool were 4 points clear at the top of the table ahead of Man City and Arsenal. Around the same time a lot of people picked the reds as favourites for the title. Fast forward to April after losses to crystal palace and everton compounded by a draw at the London stadium against westham, liverpools title hopes have all but vanished. This leaves Arsenal and Man City going head to heard to see who blinks first. The gunners are currently 1 point clear at the top of the table ahead of the citizens who have a game in hand on the gunners. Man City are clear favourates for this title but they cannot drop anymore points in the next 4 games.